I like the idea of a less profit-driven business that is maybe more community-focused but I wonder if they have the same capability as a bank? Have you been able to do your banking needs at a credit union? Was the customer service decent?
I like the idea of a less profit-driven business that is maybe more community-focused but I wonder if they have the same capability as a bank? Have you been able to do your banking needs at a credit union? Was the customer service decent?
About the same as a decent bank. That said, I almost never need to actually talk to a human and almost never get loans (my only loan is my mortgage), so you may have a better experience if you do need to engage with a banker more frequently.
I personally use my Fidelity brokerage account as my main bank. My cash is invested in money market funds at rest (currently nearly 5%, and the “brokerage” works as “checking”), their debit card has no foreign transaction fees, and their credit card is one of the best (2% cash back and no foreign transaction fee). However, they don’t offer loans outside of margin loans, so I can’t go there to get financed for a car or something. I also have an account at a local bank, mostly so I can deposit cash and withdraw specific denominations (we keep cash around for babysitters). That used to be a local credit union, but the bank had a signup bonus so I ended up switching.
I really liked my credit union when I was younger though. I had BECU (WA only I think), and they got me my first credit card and had really friendly staff. But I currently don’t have a CU account anymore because I interact with banking services so infrequently.
The important things I look for in a bank/CU are:
There are good banks and bad banks, as well as good credit unions and bad credit unions. Don’t just assume a given bank/credit union is good/bad just because it’s a bank/credit union, look for reviews online and ideally talk to people with experience with that particular org. The best option is probably a mix of two orgs, one with a good savings rate and one with convenient services. You probably won’t get a significantly different loan rate from a credit union vs a bank, and you can always shop around at banks/credit unions you don’t have a relationship with.
I personally have a bunch of accounts because I like to go for signup bonuses, and the only ones I really think people should avoid are the mega banks (in order of worse to less bad: Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Key Bank, Chase; Chase is okay if you can reliably avoid fees). You should never pay for a bank account, that’s just dumb.
Try getting out of the paper statement fee at a CU. That’s an important one because when the enshitification of their tech crosses your threshold of tolerance, it’s important to have agency to instantly go back to analog. Having that power also creates pressure on them to not enshitify their tech in the first place.
Gratis paper statements seem much less common at CUs than commercial banks.
Also regarding fees: very hard to find CUs that give a zero FX fee when pulling cash from a foreign ATM. IIRC, there is only one CU in the US (Penfed?) that has fee-free foreign currency.
Unless you consider ethics. Chase is one of the worst.
I used to think that. But in my boycott on free technofeudal pushers (Facebook, Google, Amazon, etc) I’ve evolved to prioritize privacy (and thus control) over non-transparent exploitation of my data. Have you thought about why your billpay service is free? It’s outsourced, so the billpay service has to make money somehow. Of course they are selling your data. Google and Amazon want to know about people’s offline purchases so they know whether it traces to an online ad.